6 Alcohol Treatment Facilities Shut Down

In the wake of 11 suspicious deaths, six unlicensed Los Angeles County alcohol rehabilitation centers suspected of force-feeding patients liquor to kill their desire to drink have been shut down or voluntarily closed, officials said Friday.

The closures came after inspections by law enforcement and health officials investigating reports that organizations masquerading as Spanish-language Alcoholics Anonymous meetings were, in fact, running 24-hour, live-in facilities where patients may have been held against their will.

Former patients at some of the facilities have described treatment rooms infested with vermin and furnished with urine- and vomit-stained mattresses.

The closures account for all the known 24-hour facilities suspected of practicing the so-called aversion therapy method in which patients are forced to drink in order to develop a distaste for alcohol.

Four of the facilities were issued cease-and-desist orders, forbidding the alleged illegal activities, said Fred Leaf of the county Department of Health Services. Two of the facilities closed on their own, Leaf said.

Among the facilities closed were Grupo Liberacion y Fortaleza in North Hollywood and Grupo Vida Nueva Alcoholicos Anonimos near downtown. Prosecutors have brought criminal charges of manslaughter against seven members of the two groups in the deaths of two men, both of whom were allegedly tied up and force-fed alcohol before they died.

Members of a multi-agency task force now plan to inspect the meeting sites of several dozen more organizations that use the Grupo Alcoholicos Anonimos name but do not appear to be open 24 hours.

Leaf said the four men arrested in connection with the death last month at Grupo Liberacion y Fortaleza have been cooperative with investigators.

“They have been very candid,” he said. “They are totally unashamed of what they’ve done because, in fact, they believe they were trying to help these individuals.”

Court officials have distributed a list of 57 suspect facilities to all courthouses in the county.

Court clerks have been instructed to provide defendants sentenced to alcohol treatment with a copy of the list, along with a health department advisory counseling them against visiting the sites under investigation.

Court officials were criticized at last Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting for not knowing that some defendants sentenced to counseling had been referred to some of the facilities in question.